I'm getting ready to finish the interior of my 56 chevy cab. Does anyone know whats involved with mounting a 3-point seat belt in this cab. Have you seen any "how to" articals anywhere on the web?
Do you have the exterior sheet metal finished and painted? If you do ignore the following. Locate where you want the upper anchor and on the outside of the cab cut an access hole. Through this hole fit a 3/16X3 inch steel strap from the back window opening to the door post. From the inside drill your upper anchor hole a size bigger than the anchor bolt. Poke your anchor bolt through the hole and screw a nut on it, then weld the nut to the strap. Replace the piece you cut out. We use a plasma cutter with a new tip to cut out the access hole-this removes less metal than a hacksaw and the piece can be butt welded back in with a mig by skipping around with stitch welds so you get no warpage and finishing requires very little filler. The 3/16 steel strap can be preformed to fit the inner sheet metal with a hammer and vice. The strap and the anchor nut just need to be tacked in a couple places since their function is to spread the stress over a large area. This is probably overkill because many of the lap belts just have a large washer less than 1/8 inch thick on the underside of the floor pan. Good luck Evan
>I'm getting ready to finish the interior of my 56 chevy cab. >Does anyone >know whats involved with mounting a 3-point seat belt in >this cab. >Have you seen any "how to" articals anywhere on the web? WHY ? Your still gonna smack your melon off the cab or door post if you roll it. Slow down or hang on tighter to the steering wheel !!
I added 3 point belts to my truck without having to worry about doing any body work or messing up the interior. Keep in mind that my truck has the small back window-- a different method will be required if your truck has the wrap-around window. (I read how this is done with the big window-- don't remember the website, but I found it by Googling). I used the seatbelts from a '88 thru '93 Chevy (or GMC) pickup. I located the anchor bolt up 13 inches from the bottom end of the interior wall of the truck and 3 inches back from the door opening. I used the anchor bolts from a late 80's Jeep Cherokee, as these are short and locate the anchor flush with the cab wall. The retractor mechanisms were mounted on the "channel" stamped into the cab floor at the back of the seating area. The mechanisms had to be shimmed about 2" off of the cab floor to allow clearance for the plastic mechanism covers. All anchor nuts should be backed with large thick shims or multiple washers to bolster the sheet metal. Oh, yeah-- to attach the anchor bolts for the shoulder harness, I glued the shim to the nut with Liquid Nails and then taped (with masking tape) the assembly to an 18" long 11/16" open end wrench that I have and inserted the assembly between the two cab walls and ran it up behind the anchor bolt hole and then tightened the anchor bolt by turning it with a torx socket. The open end wrench was then easily extracted from the masking tape / nut combination. (If you don't have a wrench that long, I'm sure that something can be fabricated with a piece of conduit and a shorter wrench.) Incidentally, the seat in my truck is also from a '93 Chevy pickup and while it is really too wide for the cab, there is still room for the seatbelt mechanisms... just remember: measure TWICE: drill ONCE. Good Luck!! rick az
I added seatbelts to my 59 with a small back window some time ago. As I recall they were from some vintage of early 80's chevy truck. The tensioner fit fine on the floor with the bracket that came from the truck I got them out of. I didn't have to cut any holes in the body to put them in either. We just cut a plate out of the side of a scrap 83 chevy truck frame as big as it could be and still fit up inside the gap from and bent it to match where I wanted it. Then I drilled a hole in it and welded a nut of the same threads to the back side. We also welded a small loop on the bottom edge to capture the end of an old wooden handle we had laying arround. Then measured and drilled the holes for the bolts to pass through and made two small holes that would be in the area of the plate. Then we put a dab of silicone on the front of the plate and fished it up in the body and stuck the end of the stick on it and finagled it up into place. I lined up the hole with my pinky and threaded the bolt in to hold it, then I filled the 2 holes I left with weld to permanantly hold them in. Grind it flush and you never know its there. The trick for me was to mount the buckle ends and center belt, as they were way too short to reach the floor with the bench seat of undeterminable origin that I have. I had my dad machine some stands for me that are about 3" in diameter and 6" tall out of a solid block of stainless. Then we droped a long grade 8 bolt through and I used a 1/4" thick slice of the spacer as washer below. Probably overkill but since we had all the parts it didnt cost me a dime. Served me well with junkyard belts for a few months untill I parked it to blow it apart for the rest of the reconditioning. When it goes back together new bets will go in the same mounts.
